The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936, involving a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss. The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who had directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Created by screenwriter David S. Ward, the story was inspired by real-life cons perpetrated by brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff and documented by David Maurer in his book The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man; the title phrase refers to the moment when a con artist finishes the "play" and takes the mark's money. If a con is successful, the mark does not realize he has been cheated until the con men are long gone, if at all; the film is played out in distinct sections with old-fashioned title cards, the lettering and illustrations rendered in a style reminiscent of the Saturday Evening Post. The film is noted for its anachronistic use of ragtime the melody "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin, adapted for the film by Marvin Hamlisch.

The film's success created a resurgence of interest in Joplin's work. Released on Christmas Day of 1973, The Sting received universal acclaim and was hugely successful at the 46th Academy Awards, being nominated for ten Oscars and winning seven, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Writing. In 2005, The Sting was selected for preservation in the U. S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally or aesthetically significant." The film takes place in 1936, in the waning years of the Great Depression. Johnny Hooker, a grifter in Joliet, cons $11,000 in cash in a pigeon drop from an unsuspecting victim with the aid of his partners Luther Coleman and Joe Erie. Buoyed by the windfall, Luther announces his retirement and advises Hooker to seek out an old friend, Henry Gondorff, in Chicago to teach him "the big con", their victim was a numbers racket courier for vicious crime boss Doyle Lonnegan. Corrupt Joliet police Lieutenant William Snyder confronts Hooker, revealing Lonnegan's involvement and demanding part of Hooker's cut.

Having blown his share on a single roulette spin, Hooker pays Snyder in counterfeit bills. Lonnegan's men murder both the courier and Luther, Hooker flees for his life to Chicago. Hooker finds Henry Gondorff, a once-great con-man now hiding from the FBI, asks for his help in taking on the dangerous Lonnegan. Gondorff is reluctant, but he relents and recruits a core team of experienced con men to dupe Lonnegan, they decide to resurrect an elaborate obsolete scam known as "the wire", using a larger crew of con artists to create a phony off-track betting parlor. Aboard the opulent 20th Century Limited, posing as boorish Chicago bookie Shaw, buys into Lonnegan's private, high-stakes poker game. Shaw infuriates Lonnegan with his obnoxious behavior outcheats him to win $15,000. Hooker, posing as Shaw's disgruntled employee, Kelly, is sent to collect the winnings and instead convinces Lonnegan that he wants to take over Shaw's operation. Kelly reveals that he has a partner named Les Harmon in the Chicago Western Union office, who will allow them to win bets on horse races by past-posting.

Meanwhile, Snyder has tracked Hooker to Chicago, but his pursuit is thwarted when he is summoned by undercover FBI agents led by Agent Polk, who orders him to assist in their plan to arrest Gondorff using Hooker. At the same time, Lonnegan has grown frustrated with the inability of his men to find and kill Hooker for the Joliet con. Unaware that Kelly is Hooker, he demands that his best assassin, be given the job. A mysterious figure with black leather gloves is seen following and observing Hooker. Kelly's connection appears effective, as Harmon provides Lonnegan with the winner of one horse race and the trifecta of another. Lonnegan agrees to finance a $500,000 bet at Shaw's parlor to break gain revenge. Shortly thereafter, Snyder brings him before FBI Agent Polk. Polk forces Hooker to betray Gondorff by threatening to incarcerate Luther Coleman's widow; the night before the sting, Hooker sleeps with a waitress from a local restaurant. As Hooker leaves the building the next morning, he sees Loretta walking toward him.

The black-gloved man appears behind Hooker and shoots her dead – she was Lonnegan's hired killer, Loretta Salino, the gunman was hired by Gondorff to protect Hooker. Armed with Harmon's tip to "place it on Lucky Dan", Lonnegan makes the $500,000 bet at Shaw's parlor on Lucky Dan to win; as the race begins, Harmon arrives and expresses shock at Lonnegan's bet, explaining that when he said "place it" he meant that Lucky Dan would "place". In a panic, Lonnegan demands his money back. A moment Polk, Lt. Snyder, a half dozen FBI agents storm the parlor. Polk confronts Gondorff tells Hooker he is free to go. Gondorff, reacting to the betrayal, shoots Hooker in the back. Polk shoots Gondorff and orders Snyder to get the ostensibly-respectable Lonnegan away from the crime scene. With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away and Gondorff rise amid cheers and laughter. Agent Polk is Hickey, a con man, running a con atop Gondorff's con to divert Snyder and provide a solid "blow off"; as the con men strip the room of its contents, Hooker refuses his share of the money, saying "I'd only blow it", walks away with Gondorff.

Screenwriter David S. Ward has said in an interviews that he was inspired to write The Sting while doing research on pickpockets, saying, "Since I had never seen a film

Indians in the Dominican Republic consist of a number of expatriates and immigrants from India and their locally born descendants. As of 2012, there are about 200 people of Indian ancestry living the country. In recent years, Indian students have started joining medical courses in the Dominican Republic and engineers and IT professionals are trickling in as major companies have set up shop on the island. There is a small, but dominant Gujarati business community engaged in the hotel and jewellery industry. On 25th January of the year 2019, the Hermanas Mirabal Province of Salcedo has proclaimed a day honouring the Indian population in the Province; the festivities were organized by the Amistad India- Hermanas Mirabal Foundation led by Indian nationals and friends of India with the help of Oficina Technica Provincial. Various cultural activities were performed by the students of Liceo Cientifico Dr Miguel Canela Lazaro; the second rendition of the India- Hermanas Mirabal friendship day was celebrated on the 8th of February 2020.

Many cultural programs including music and gastronomic experiences were included. Many school kids from the Province has showcased yoga demonstration; the Hermanas Mirabal Province is a multicultural province that houses many nationalities including a few Indian citizens. The Indian Ambassador in Havana, Ms Madhu Seti and the Dominican Ambassador to India, Mr Hans Dannenberg Castellanos recognized the hospitality extended by the Province through video messages; the President of Indian Chamber of Commerce in the Dominican Republic, Mr Dharmendra Basita presided over the festivities. Asian Latin American Indo-Haitian

A Humument: A treated Victorian novel is an altered book by British artist Tom Phillips, published in its first edition in 1970 and completed in 2016. It is a piece of art created over W H Mallock's 1892 novel A Human Document whose title results from the partial deletion of the original title: A Human document.' Phillips drew and collaged over the pages, while leaving some of the original text to show through in the form of erasure. Through this process, A Humument is a new story with a new protagonist named Bill Toge, whose name appears only when the word "together" or "altogether" appears in Mallock's original text. From being created over many decades, it follows a nonlinear narrative, in recent editions Phillips has rewritten pages to include references to modern history that in part appear to be anachronistic; when asked about the book, Phillips replied: "It is a forgotten Victorian novel found by chance... plundered and undermined its text to make it yield the ghosts of other possible stories, scenes and replaced the text stripped away with visual images of all kinds."

A Humument was begun in the 1960s. In 1970, Tetrad Press put out a small edition; the first trade edition was published in 1980 by Thames & Hudson, which published revised editions in 1986, 1998 and 2004. Each edition replaces various pages. Phillips's stated goal is to replace every page from the 1970 edition. Phillips has used the same technique in many of his other works, including the illustration of his own translation of Dante's Inferno; the altered text has been sometimes used in "reconstructions" or "realizations" where artists create a work using the fragmentary text as a basis. For instance in the early 1970s, the Music Department at the University of York performed an opera, devised by Phillips in 1969, whose lyrics and plot were based on A Humument. Tom Phillips has created a digital version of A Humument, A Humument App for the iPad, released in November 2010; the app was critically acclaimed, receiving favourable reviews in The Independent, Eye Magazine blog, Design Observer. A version for the iPhone was released 17 January 2011.

A'final' printed edition, extensively reworked by Phillips, was published by Thames & Hudson in 2016, reviewed by Clare Pettitt in the Times Literary Supplement. Tom Phillips' official web site Full online presentation of the 1970 edition Adam Smyth, "Double Act," London Review of Books, 11 October 2012

Carnival Liberty is a Conquest-class cruise ship operated by Carnival Cruise Line. Built by Fincantieri at its Monfalcone shipyard in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, northern Italy, she was christened by actress Mira Sorvino in Civitavecchia, Italy, on July 19, 2005. Carnival Liberty was the first ship to feature Carnival's Seaside Theater—a 12-foot high by 22-foot wide LED screen. Located by the midship pool on the Lido deck, it is used to show movies, sporting events and other ship programming. On November 3, 2006, Carnival Liberty departed Italy, to Fort Lauderdale. During the 16-day transatlantic voyage, over 700 people contracted the contagious norovirus illness. On the morning hours of November 15, Carnival Cruise Lines announced it would shorten the next cruise by two days for an extensive cleaning; the next cruise was scheduled to depart on November 19 for a six-day cruise. The November 19 cruise was rescheduled to depart Fort Lauderdale on November 21 for a four-day cruise using new ports-of-call.

Safety measures were enacted on a few of the future cruises to prevent further contamination. These safety measures included suspending self-service on the buffet lines; when the first cruise after the outbreak ended on November 25, fewer than 60 passengers were reported to have contracted the norovirus. On the August 22, 2014 sailing, the Carnival Liberty was forced by the storm system that would become Hurricane Cristobal to use a rerouted itinerary along a course that would take it close to Cuba. On August 23, a distress signal was received and a small, makeshift styrofoam raft was observed near the ship; the Liberty reversed course and proceeded to pull 11 Cuban refugees from the raft who had requested rescue in the worsening sea conditions. Hundreds of passengers observed the rescue, conducted off the port side; the raft was abandoned in the water as the ship continued on its modified course toward St. Thomas, U. S. Virgin Islands, scheduled for arrival on August 25; the U. S. Coast Guard ordered a rendezvous where the refugees were offloaded onto a Coast Guard cutter for transfer back to Cuba overnight on the 23rd and 24th.

On September 7, 2015, Carnival Cruise Lines confirmed in a statement that the U. S. Coast Guard had been called to provide assistance to the ship due to an engine room fire; the incident occurred. All hotel services on the ship including air conditioning, elevators and galleys were functional and the ship's normal array of activities including entertainment and dining proceeded as normal after passengers were allowed to re-board on the night of September 7. Official website

Feng Jicai is a contemporary Chinese author and cultural scholar. Born in Tianjin in 1942 to a family from Ningbo, Zhejiang province, Feng rose to prominence as a pioneer of the Scar Literature movement that emerged after the Cultural Revolution, he has published close to one hundred literary works that span a number of different topics and genres. His major works include Ah!, The Carved Pipe, The Tall Woman and Her Short Husband, The Miraculous Pigtail, Three Inch Golden Lotus, Zebra Finches, Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China's Cultural Revolution, Extraordinary People in Our Ordinary World. His work has been translated into English, German, Japanese, Dutch, Spanish and Vietnamese. Feng is an artist, he has exhibited his artwork in China, Singapore and the United States, published several art albums, is proficient in both Chinese and Western artistic techniques. Feng is a cultural scholar, he proposed and directed the Project to Save Chinese Folk Cultural Heritages, over the last two decades he has campaigned to preserve urban culture and traditional villages.

Feng is an honorary member of the Literature and Arts Association, honorary president of the China Folk Literature and Art Association, an adviser to the State Council. He is dean, professor and PhD supervisor at the Feng Jicai Institute of Literature and Art, Tianjin University, vice chair of the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Evaluation Group, director of the China Traditional Village Protection Expert Committee, he used to be vice chairman of the China Association for Promoting Democracy Central Committee, vice chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, chairman of the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Association, member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Standing Committee, chairman of Tianjin Federation of Literary and Art Circles. In 2013, Feng won the 22nd Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award. In 2018, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles honoured Feng and Wu Bing'an with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Folk Art and Literature.

Chrysanthemums and Other Stories The Miraculous Pigtail Voices from the Whirlwind Three Inch Golden Lotus Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China's Cultural Revolution Selected Stories by Feng Jicai "Feng Jicai: Safeguarding Folk Culture" @ the Internet Archive Biography @ China Vitae

Dr. Janet Dunbar is an American composer. Dunbar earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition at Stanford University, working under composers Chris Chafe, John Chowning, Jonathan Harvey and Wayne Peterson. During the years when Dunbar worked at CCRMA, the composer produced computer music compositions which integrated traditional instruments, poetic recitations and vocal melodies with algorithmically composed music, seeded with world music motives; this algorithmic composition and digital synthesis required fluency in computer languages including Common Lisp, Common Lisp Music and Heinrich Taube’s Stella. This work culminated in the production of Spirit Journey. Prior to the CCRMA years, Dunbar earned a Master of Arts degree in Music from San Jose State University, where the composer studied composition and agogic accentation with Tikey Zes, electronic music composition with Allen Strange, instrumental composition with Jorge Liderman. Dunbar composes works for orchestra, other forces, directs Amberlight Conservatory and teaches at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

Emergence Episodes Déjà Vu Vision Epiphany Symphony of the Woods Ave Maria for mixed chorus Glory to God in the Highest for SAT/B Agnus Dei for SAT An Inexplicable Variation Fixation for string quartet Transformation for guitar quartet Autumn Autograph for two guitars When the Spirit Moves You… for string quartet Spring Fever Triptych for two guitars Duo for trumpet and electric guitar with piano accompaniment The Radiance of Her Light, I-III for soprano, performance poet, two percussionists and the Divine Essences for soprano and cello South Fork of a Daystream for violin and guitar A Light Left On for soprano and piano Guitar Quartet String Quintet for string quartet and guitar Inside My Wildest Dreams for solo piano Subterranean Grotto for solo double bass Sleep Dancing for solo guitar Vary Vary Rondo for solo horn Recuerdos de Segovia for solo guitar: revised 2008 Mutated Permutations for solo flute Variations after Bartok for solo piano Crystal Mines for solo piano Dances for solo piano Theme and Variations for solo piano Two Part Invention for solo piano Fugue for solo piano Charles Ives Visits the Red River Valley for solo piano Twelve Tones Stand Alone for solo guitar Antonym for solo piano Subject and Reflection for solo piano Spirit Journey CD Song of the Sea, I-X for soprano, performance poet, CD Song of the Bear, I-II for soprano, performance poet, CD Nine Prayers, I-III for soprano, performance poet and CD Song of the Shaman, I-IV for soprano, performance poet, percussionist and CD Life on Earth, I-III for performance poet and tape Jailbreak on tape Austine, Leni.

“Review of Spirit Journey”. Pan Gaia Magazine, Summer, 2000. Kaplan, Shari. Cover Story: Vision Quest: Saratoga musician finds peace in the journey of life. Saratoga News, December 1, 1999, Saratoga, CA. Nelson, Bernie P. Spirit Journey by Janet Dunbar. Lightword Reviews, January 10, 2000, Lightword Publishers, Del Rio, TX. Young, Christianne. “’Modern’ Classical: Colleyville Composer’s Music Gets International Play”. Colleyville Courier, August 5, 2009, Colleyville, TX. Official Website CCRMA Website Janet Dunbar at Youtube